Canyonero

5F10 Canyonero

Can you name the truck with four wheel drive,
smells like a steak and seats thirty-five..

Canyonero! Canyonero!

Well, it goes real slow with the hammer down,
It's the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown!

Canyonero! (Yah!) Canyonero!
[Krusty:] Hey Hey

The Federal Highway comission has ruled the
Canyonero unsafe for highway or city driving.

Canyonero!

12 yards long, 2 lanes wide,
65 tons of American Pride!

Canyonero! Canyonero!

Top of the line in utility sports,
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!

Canyonero! Canyonero! (Yah!)

She blinds everybody with her super high beams,
She's a squirrel crushing, deer smacking, driving machine!

Canyonero!-oh woah, Canyonero! (Yah!)

Drive Canyonero!

Woah Canyonero!

Woah!

 

This lovely revisitation of the Canyonero episode of the Simpsons is owed to the first emergence of $4.00 a gallon gas in the puget sound area. Coinciding nicely, Honda is in the news with its newly announced aim of affordable hybrids with only a $2,000 premium over a non-hybrid model of the same car.

 

Meanwhile, back in the United States of Slow Adaptation, Ford cuts its forecasts of potential profit in 2009 mostly because they can't seem to make a decent vehicle that isn't a truck. Plus, their core consumer market of contractors and construction workers who feel a desire for small penis compenstion via huge tires are feeling a bit of a pinch in the back pocket with rising fuel costs and a falling construction market.

Simultaneously, consumers who are trying to trade in their Canyoneros of all shapes and sizes are being offered pennies on the dollar for their costly to operate rides.

 

This brings is to the question/statement/Jerry Springer moment of the day - what shall we do with all of these SUVs? I believe that all of the excess trucks that were merely status symbols will be readily absorbed by small business owners, farmers, etc who actually have uses that justify the high operating costs, but what about the Tahoes, Lexus SUV's and others that have no practical purpose a minivan can't emulate? What to do with all this sheetmetal?

 

I am now a proud Hunter's Ed graduate

Cue up the pomp and circumstance, after a grueling 10 hour (more like 8 hour really) course, I can now purchase a hunting license and shoot woodland creatures. Of course, everyone in my class, including kids aged 8 to 12) passed, so you can surmise that this is not the most intellectually intense challenge out there.

 

Highlights included a video entitled "Shoot, Don't Shoot" which details a variety of scenarios, all including a mustachioed woodsman about to shoot an animal. Right before the moment of truth, the video pauses and the class must chant out "Shoot" or "Don't Shoot" As you can imagine, only about 1/3rd of the scenarios were actually "Shoot" moments, but the audience voted to shoot about half the time. This includes some particularly obnoxious 12 year olds who I would have liked to take outside and beat (though not because they voted to "Shoot" every time, there were numerous other reasons for a solid beatdown).

 

Pat and I simulated getting in and out of a boat and crossing a fence together, it was a very precious moment that I wish all could have witnessed.

Pudding apparently killed this melamine bowl, not sure why, just took it out of the fridge and it was shattered around the bottom.

Go Dawgs

Go here and read about the most exciting game UW will probably play all season long.

 

Notes from the game

1. Either Artem Wallace is severaly underrated defensively (not too likely, since he got lit up for 30+ points 2 of the last 3 games) or Kevin Love is overrated offensively, because he played like garbage Sunday. I think any team considering drafting K-love has to go over this game film, if you can't handle Artem (no offense to Mr. Wallace, but not exactly 1st team Pac-10 material) bumping you in the post, then you are in no way better than any of the worthless big men the sonics drafted in the years before Kevin Durant.  Even better, rather than just taking his lumps for a shitty game, he has the balls to say it's his teammates fault for not getting him the ball - ""I was looking for the ball. ... I felt I was open and my teammates didn't find me."
2. Where was this side of Justin Dentmon's game all year long? It's painful to think how good UW could have been if they had been firing on all cylinders for the whole season. Then again, I think everyone felt the same way last year.
3. Not too proud of the Tim Morris pass of Aboya's face, I'm hoping inside that it wasn't intentional, but if it was, then well, sometimes you just have to be aggressive I guess.
4. On the same note as Justin Dentmon, Pondexter, you turned into an animal for about 20 minutes, then kind of faded back to your normal self after the quick foul calls, bring back the animal, please. Maybe seeing your highlight on sportscenter will wake you up.
5. Pac-10 officiating is just about total garbage right now, what has happened?

Woof!

Interesting morning in Oly

Down here for a training Monday and Tuesday. I checked out of my hotel this morning and I as I was putting my bags into the old rusty truck a nice old fellow stopped to ask where I was going. I told him "nowhere at the moment, just heading up the street for a training". Then he asked if I was in the service. Not so much I had to tell him, he seemed disappointed, particularly after I told him I was in town for a software training. Sorry old fella.

A summer at the winery

When I tell most people that I spent almost 3 months working in a winery a look a jealousy begins to appear on their face and visions of mediterranean vineyards begin to form in their minds. Here's why they have no idea what the hell they would be getting themselves into.

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Part 1

After I graduated high school I moved 200 miles away to go to University. I stayed in the dorms that year (and the next) and came back home for the first (and last) time to work after my freshman year. From my post below you can see that I used to work at a local ISP in my hometown. However, with 9/11 having occurred shortly before I started my first year of college, the employment situation in small town Eastern Washington wasn't exactly great, and by that, I mean it was absolutely g--damn horrible.

 It had looked like I would be able to get my job back at the ISP up until a month before I moved back, but they barely had enough work for the people they currently had.  I had anticipated just finding a service level job somewhere and passing my time making minimum wage until school started up again. This was easier said than done however. After a fruitless week of driving around looking for jobs with my friend Dan (not a lot of Internet job postings in small town America after all) we followed the advice of a friend who was working as a temp in a winery warehouse about 40 miles south of our town and applied at his temp agency. Of course, at this agency you don't specifically apply for a job anywhere, but it was understood you would end up at one of three places unless you were an expert welder of fruit picker. Your three options were

• Steel Plant
• Winery Warehouse
• Cherry Processing Plant

As manly as it would be, the idea of working in a steel plant wasn't terribly appealing, plus, we didn't have steel toed boots, and the cherry plant jobs only lasted a month. Plus, we wanted to work with our friend, so we slanted our applications towards the warehouse. Ignorant college kids that we were, we spent a long time filling out the 'technical skills' section of our resumes with all of our office application suites and programming languages that we knew, only to turn in our forms and have our new 'boss' tell us that they "didn't really have a lot, or any" of those type of jobs to fill.

 So, after our afternoon of filling out forms at the employment agency, we went back home and waited. We didn't hear anything for 2 days, our friend who worked at the warehouse told us he was trying to get his supervisor to hire us on, but that he hadn't heard anything yet.

 First, a quick digression into the job that our friend had, he and an acquaintance of ours worked down there packaging products for display and special shipments, the name of their department was in fact "Special Projects". They had told us many times that all their day consisted of was shining bottles and folding cardboard boxes, mindless work they said. Sounded easy enough, and they made the kingly sum of $8.50 a hour, it would be the most I would have ever made in my life, if only I could get hired on.  As another bonus, they worked 4-10's, which for those of you who aren't into work shift slang, means 4 10 hour days per work week, Fridays off, every week!

 Finally, our patience was rewarded and we got a call on Monday afternoon, we were needed at the winery tomorrow, but not a 7am, no no, we were going to be making the big bucks and working swing shift, 5pm to 3:30am, this shift carries a $.25 an hour bonus! $8.75, this was the big time!

 

To be continued in episode 2...

 

 

Random Jobs

Through my short working career, I'm perhaps close to (though not the record holder)  having the most odd jobs of anyone with a Bachelor's degree.

 

Here's a list of them, in chronological order

• Mailing Assistant/Catalog Sender for a small gourmet food company
• Sandwich Artist
• Service Station Attendant (pumping gas at the last full service station in the state)
• Student Technician at a local ISP
• Student Helpdesk Technican (answer dumb questions, make sure no one in masturbating in the labs)
• Temporary Warehouse Worker (putting stickers on items)
• Temporary Warehouse Worker (driving forklift and putting stickers on items, while also shrink wrapping pallets of random crap to send out to distributors)
• GIS Analyst Intern (Making Maps)
• Mapping Specialist (Making Maps, but now Map is in my title!)
• Teaching Assistant (Teach dumb kids)
• Research Assistant (Save the world through conference calls!)
• Resource Foreman (I was head of a team of Moth Trappers - that's right, MOTH TRAPPERS, a team of them!)
• Teaching Assistant (Teach dumb kids again, but now with experience!)
• GIS Analyst (Make really fancy maps!)

That pretty much brings us up to date right there. That's a grand total of 14 positions in less than 10 years of work history, however to be fair, I counted working in 1 warehouse twice, mostly because I was fired and then re-hired at a later date after my name was cleared.